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News - page 650

Future MacBook keyboards could be dust-proof

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Apple is considering a MacBook with a glass keyboard, not a traditional one.
Apple is considering a MacBook with a glass keyboard, not a traditional one.
Photo: Apple/Cult of Mac

Apple developed a design for a MacBook keyboard that’s slim, lightweight, silent and can’t possibly have problems with grit in the keys. That’s because it consists of a sheet of glass with raised keys.

Obviously there are drawbacks, but this proposal shows the company’s efforts to innovate.

Brilliant hack keeps AirPods in her ears

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AirPods earrings
Gabrielle Reilly embraces form and function with her Airings.
Photo: Gabrielle Reilly

Gabrielle Reilly purchased Apple AirPods because there were no wires for her mischievous cat to chew up.

But AirPods came with a new risk of loss from slipping out of her ears. So Reilly, a paralegal from Virginia, created a set of earrings to hold her AirPods.

iPad Pro’s winning redesign takes sting out of iPhone slump

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2018 iPad Pro Smart Keyboard
The launch of the 2018 iPad Pro gave Apple a stellar holiday season in tablet sales.
Photo: Apple

iPad shipments grew by double digits last quarter, giving Apple its best holiday period for tablet sales since 2015.  Shipments of slates and 2-in-1s had dropped earlier in the year, but analysts correctly predicted this was the result of people holding off for the new iPad Pro.

Some of Apple’s rivals also saw gains at the end of 2018.

Apple’s big glass cube set to light up Fifth Avenue soon

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Fifth Ave store
Angela Ahrendts giving a sneak peek of the new Fifth Ave store.
Photo: Apple

The most iconic Apple store in the world is finally getting ready to reopen its doors.

Apple’s glass cube store on Fifth Avenue in New York City has been temporarily closed for over two years, but according to the property company Apple leases the land from, construction on the store’s expansion is nearly done.

Qualcomm wants Apple to pay dearly for selling iPhones in Germany

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jet black iphone 7 plus
Apple stores are banned from selling the iPhone 7 in Germany.
Photo: Apple

Qualcomm is revving up its legal battle with Apple. In a new court filing in Munich, Qualcomm demanded “significant fines” be put on the iPhone-maker for not complying with a previous court order.

Apple was barred from selling some iPhones in Germany at the end of 2018. The company pulled the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 at its retail stores, but Qualcomm is crying foul that other third-party shops still had units in stock.

Fortnite’s Showtime challenges earn you Marshmello rewards

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Marshmello Fortnite
Earn the first one today.
Photo: Marshmello

Fortnite players can now start earning exclusive new Marshmello rewards ahead of the artist’s in-game concert on February 2.

There are four altogether, but sadly the Marshmello model that leaked in data files earlier this week isn’t one of them. You can look forward to a new spray, emote, and pickaxe, however.

Crazy-cheap iPhone SE pops up in Apple clearance store again

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Apple could debut iPhone SE successor as soon as March
The iPhone SE is a brilliant handset.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple seemingly scrapped plans for an iPhone SE 2, but there’s good news for fans of Apple’s 4-inch handset. For the third time this month, Apple is offering brand-new, unlocked models of the iPhone SE for up to $150 off.

The handsets are available in rose gold, gold and silver options on Apple’s clearance webpage. The 32GB models cost just $249 and the 128GB models go for $299.

Apple lines up supplier for 2019’s iPad mini refresh

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iPad mini
The new iPad mini is more affordable when you sell your old one.
Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac

Compal Electronics will be the primary supplier of the next-generation iPad mini, which is expected to launch sometime this year, according to a new report.

The manufacturer is in the process of expanding production capacity with the expectation of increased shipments and revenues in 2019, despite “clouded” economic prospects.

Zuckerberg explains benefits of WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger merger

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facebook-logo-file
It won’t happen until 2020 at the earliest.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed plans to merge WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger — but says it probably won’t happen until 2020 at the earliest.

In a fourth-quarter earnings call this week, Zuckerberg also explained the reasons behind the plan, such as increased security with end-to-end encryption. Many questions still remain unanswered, however.

Foxconn will fulfill promise to create thousands of jobs in Wisconsin

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Foxconn signing
Foxconn and University Wisconsin officials signing a deal for a research center.
Photo: Bryce Richter/University of Wisconsin-Madison

Apple supplier Foxconn may be rethinking its U.S. manufacturing plans in Wisconsin, but the Taiwan-based company wants people to know it’s serious about delivering the jobs it promised.

Responding to a recent report, Foxconn says it will keep its promise to create 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin.

Nintendo delays its very first Mario Kart game for mobile

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Mario Kart
It won’t be here until the summer.
Photo: Nintendo

You’ll have to wait longer to get your hands on the very first Mario Kart game for Android and iOS.

Nintendo has confirmed that the launch of Mario Kart Tour has been pushed back to this summer. The much-anticipated title was originally scheduled to arrive by the end of March, but Nintendo says it needs more time to “improve quality of the application.”

It is Nintendo’s second big delay in just one week.

Federation Square officials try again to make Melbourne Apple Store a reality

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Oz new store
The original, now abandoned design for Melbourne's flagship Apple Store.
Photo: Apple

A fresh attempt is being made to demolish Federation Square’s Yarra Building in Melbourne, Australia to free up space for a proposed flagship Apple Store.

The application has been made by the square’s management, which argues that the building to be demolished is not in keeping with the other building designs in the precinct.

New York’s Attorney General wants answers about FaceTime bug

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2018 iPad Pro Animoji
Apple's FaceTime bug wasn't one of its greatest moments.
Photo: Apple

New York Attorney General Letitia James has said that her office is launching an investigation into Apple’s failure to warn customers about its FaceTime bug, which let people eavesdrop on other FaceTime users by exploiting a bug in the software.

James also wants to know why Apple was so slow to address the issue.

Apple might bring dark mode to iOS 13

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iOS 11 dark mode
iOS 12 has an inverted colors option, but it's not a true dark mode.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

One of the hottest features in macOS Mojave could make the jump to iOS soon: Dark mode is reportedly coming in the update expected this fall.

In addition, iPads running iOS 13 could get significant interface improvements, like better side-by-side multitasking.

Samsung holiday sales beat iPhone for first time in years

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Samsung Galaxy S9
It seems more people wanted to gift Galaxy phones than iPhones during the holidays.
Photo: Samsung

Apple’s last quarter was so bad the company broke its long-running streak of outselling Samsung during the holiday gift season.

Going back for several years, the maker of the Galaxy line of Android handsets always outsold Apple during the first three quarters, and in total sales for the whole year, but iPhone would came out on top in Q4. Not last quarter.

Google pulls ‘research’ iOS app and issues apology to Apple

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Google research app
Google rewards the family that willing shares its data.
Screenshot: Google/YouTube

Apple may have another tech giant to deal with over an iOS app that bypasses the App Store and Cupertino’s strict developer terms.

Until late today, Google ran a research app that monitored and analyzed internet usage and enticed users with rewards to download the app directly from Google with a developer’s code and registration.

Apple apparently not ending iOS downgrades

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The official iOS 12 release date is next week, but you can download it now.
The newest beta of iTunes blocks people from downgrading their iPhone to an earlier iOS version, but it’s apparently a bug not a feature.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

The most recent beta of iTunes reportedly won’t allow iPhone and iPad owners to reinstall an older iOS version. This is apparently the result of a bug rather than a change of policy by Apple.

It seems Apple will continue to allow users to downgrade to a previous version if a serious problem is found in a new one.

GoodReader 5 brings split-screen documents to iPad

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iPad users can view two documents side-by-side with GoodReader 5.
The iPad pre-dated the iPhone, at least inside Apple.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

The latest version of GoodReader enables iPad users to view two documents side-by-side. It also offers a long list of  improvements to its built-in PDF viewer and methods for securing files.

This iOS app debuted back in 2009, not long after the original iPad, and has been called a Swiss army knife of file managers.

3D laser camera could make 2020 iPhones AR machines

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The 2019 iPhone could have a much larger camera bump than any predecessor.
Your next iPhone might come with 3 cameras.
Render: OnLeaks/Digit.in

The 3D sensing capabilities on the iPhone are set to get a big upgrade in 2020, according to a new report.

Apple is supposedly planning to add a laser-based 3D camera system to the 2020 iPhone lineup that will be more powerful than the dot-projection system currently used by the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR for facial recognition.

Apple just broke all of Facebook’s internal apps

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Facebook owns 4 of the top 10 apps of the past decade
Facebook owns 4 of the top 10 apps of the past decade
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple just dealt Facebook a serious blow in retaliation for the social network’s recently pulled VPN app that was paying teens to take all their data from phones.

Facebook’s internal iOS apps no longer work after Apple revoked the certifications need to install the apps on employee’s iPhones. Everything from early builds of Facebook, Messenger and Instagram won’t even open. Even simple tools like a lunch menu are currently broken.

Amazon’s Drop In basically turns Apple FaceTime bug into a feature [Opinion]

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facebook eavesdropping microphone
Smart speakers are microphones that other people can listen to.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

You know the Apple FaceTime bug that everyone’s going crazy about? It’s a huge screwup, for sure, but at least we know it’s just a bug. Being able to call someone and eavesdrop on their conversations without them knowing is clearly a privacy nightmare, which is why Apple disabled Group FaceTime until it can issue a proper fix.

Amazon, on the other hand, offers silent eavesdropping as a feature for its Echo speakers. It’s called Drop In, and if you’ve enabled it, you should probably turn it off.

Chinese worker allegedly caught stealing Apple self-driving car secrets

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Project Titan
Apple is invested heavily in self-driving tech.
Photo: Idiggapple/Twitter

Another alleged Chinese spy has been caught apparently trying to steal secrets from Apple’s mysterious self-driving car project.

The FBI reportedly arrested a Chinese national working for Apple the day before he planned to fly back to China with thousands of files on his laptop, including Apple’s intellectual property. He was reportedly planning to take all the info to a Chinese electric car manufacturer.

Hacked iPhones star in Middle East cyberwar

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UAE iPhone hacks
The hack took advantage of a flaw in iMessage.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Intelligence operatives from the United Arab Emirates used a powerful cyber weapon that allowed them to monitor the iPhones of hundreds of targets.

The iPhone spy tool, dubbed Karma, gave the UAE remote access to phone numbers, photos, emails and text messages in 2016 and 2017.

An iOS security update rendered it “far less effective,” according to U.S. intelligence contractors who worked with the UAE to breach the iPhones of diplomats, activists, and rival foreign leaders.